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more time together& he had understood. And he had made adjustments. But
Elizabeth didn t want him to sacrifice his efforts. She believed in what he
was doing. She wanted his understanding& she wanted whatever effort was
available& and she wanted his support in finding something outside the home,
and outside of her church involvement, to which she could devote herself
during the long daylight hours.
Liz shared Cindy s experience with Joseph and indicated that she wanted to do
something either in direct support of his work, or in support of the war
effort. After a lot of talk, they had decided that she would look for a
position on the outskirts of Boston, in either New Hampshire or Massachusetts.
Joseph was familiar with a number of firms who were supporting the development
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efforts arising from the research on the Genome Project with which he was
involved.
It had been immediately after an interview, while she was walking back to her
car in the parking lot of theRaythone facility in Salem, New Hampshire that
Elizabeth had heard what she though at first were some firecrackers going off
nearby. The sound had come from the direction of one of the metro stops just
up and across the main thoroughfare from her. When the crackling had gone
on& and when the sounds had approached closer and closer to the parking lot
where she was standing, it became apparent to Elizabeth that the sounds were
not firecrackers at all& they were gunshots.
Elizabeth had quickly crouched down behind her car and watched in horror as
several men with hoods on their heads and carrying rifles ran into a parking
lot directly across the street from her. There they took up positions amongst
the cars there and began firing at those pursuing them. Then, a larger number
of other men, some of them dressed in business suits, had surrounded those
first men and shouted for them to surrender. The other men ignored the demand
and kept firing. She watched as several of the men in the larger group were
hit, clearly seeing the crimson on their clothing from where she sat.
Elizabeth heard distinctly the ricochet of two or three bullets off of the
pavement and off of cars within forty feet of her as
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the shooting continued and while she crouched ever closer to the pavement,
praying.
Ultimately, more and more civilians with guns had arrived along with several
police cars and what looked like National Guard vehicles. By the time the
National Guard vehicles arrived however, the issue had already been pretty
much resolved. Very little fire was coming from that first group of men,
although they still refused to surrender. Within another couple of minutes all
of the firing had stopped and Elizabeth had cautiously looked over the hood of
her car and seen the soldiers, officers and civilians carefully examining the
place where the first group of armed men had taken cover. Two of them were
apparently wounded and were taken away in ambulances, but only after four
civilians who had been wounded were attended to first. There were a total of
eight civilians and six of the others covered with sheets and laying on the
ground around the area.
A police officer had come over and briefly interviewed Elizabeth regarding
what she had seen. When she had finished giving him her statement, and after
she had calmed down enough to collect her emotions, Elizabeth had gotten back
in her car and called Joseph on her cell phone. He had told her to stay right
there while he got a friend to immediately drive him over. He arrived at
break-neck speed within twenty minutes and, after consoling her, had driven
her home.
It was this experience that Elizabeth had briefly relayed to Cindy. It was an
experience she would never forget. It was an experience that had also firmly
established in her mind an acceptance and approval of the President's
initiatives regarding firearms in the hands of citizens. Up to that point,
Elizabeth had viewed such a proposal with some concern for public safety, but
no more. Elizabeth did not want to think about what that first group of men
could have done had there been no one around to stop them when they first
started firing at the bus stop down the street. Perhaps they had wanted to
attackRaythone , where components of the Patriot missile were made& but they
had never gotten the chance. Elizabeth had experienced firsthand how citizens
could stop such a terror attack and keep the terrorists occupied with
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